Museum and library bring ‘Monster’ collaboration

Rich Lopez | jrlopez@mrt.com

Published
10:05 am CDT, Sunday, May 3, 2015

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Museum and library bring ‘Monster’ collaboration

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Over the weekend, Midlanders might notice some strangers around town — most notably in the Midland County Public Library Centennial branch and the Museum of the Southwest’s Fredda Turner Durham’s Children Museum.

Both Midland institutions debuted the North American premiere of “Permian Monsters: Life Before the Dinosaurs” on Friday. With more than 30 natural specimens, eight full-live models, three animatronics, computer stations, timelines and more, the massive exhibition was only going to happen here because of this super team-up between the museum and the library. Permian Monsters is essentially a two-part exhibition.

“I don’t know of a larger exhibit or bigger collaboration that has ever taken place in Midland,” County Commissioner Randy Prude said at the Permian Monsters press conference. “This is going to be a great success.”

Permian Monsters had been in the works for a year prior to Friday’s opening as plans were arranged and ironed out between the organizations’ schedules.

“We’re excited to host this exhibition,” said Brian Lee Whisenhunt, Museum of the Southwest executive director. “The staffs of both have been working for a long time to pull this together. With any collaboration of this size, it takes a lot of conversations, lots of questions and lots of discussions on how it will work.”

Midland is the first location for this exhibition to be shown on this side of the globe. Permian Monsters traveled to Midland from its homebase in Tasmania, Australia.

The exhibition allows viewers to go back 290 million years before the time of dinosaurs most of us are so familiar with. All the “monsters” are from the Permian geological period that also featured the creation of the Permian Basin. The extinction of these creatures was considered the largest mass extinction event on the planet.

While viewers can see the monsters up close, they will also learn more about the time period via peripheral educational materials and additional programming by both the library and the museum.

“While we’ll capture some school tours before summer break, we’ll also be incorporating our summer reading programming and story time into the exhibition as well as supplementary efforts,” said John Trischitti, director of Midland County Public Libraries.

Permian Monsters can thus be experienced in several different ways and by a variety of people. This was important to both Whisenhunt and Trischitti.

“We always try to look for opportunities that play across the spectrum of ages,” Whisenhunt said. “I think this will be interesting in a variety of ways, and, on our end, there is a lot of art to it, as well. We’ll be hosting our portion in Durham Children’s Museum, but it’s not just for children.”

At the same time, this is an opportunity for Midlanders to be introduced to organizations they might not be familiar with.

“This collaboration gives us what we can’t do on our own, but I also think it raises the acceptance level in community. We have a lot of crossover, but there is a percentage of our audiences that don’t use the other, and so we think that this collaboration will be an additional success in expanding client bases,” Trischitti said.

In their preparations and talks, Trischitti and Whisenhunt discussed that not all people share the same thoughts on historical timelines.

“We deal with that all the time at the library because the nature of our business demands us to be very diverse,” Trischitti said. “People are passionate what they are passionate about. We play up the more fun and educational components, and let the people decide how they feel.”

Whisenhunt added that this was a discussion held early on. “We’re trying to inspire people to have those conversations and if this can, that’s wonderful.”

But after a year in the making (or 290 million years), both institutions are glad the time has finally come for Midland to present Permian Monsters, and they’re also excited about what the future can hold because of this.

“Brian and I both have been here about same time, and we sought to do something big and amazing. We found this exhibition has appeal for both our organizations,” Trischitti said.

“We were looking for the next big thing, and I think we found it,” Whisenhunt added. “I hope this is the first of many collaborations and perhaps even an example how other organizations can work together.”